Archive for the ‘Pickles’ Category

I didn’t grow up in a particularly religious family, so Easter was always something of a non-event for me. Sure, I got an Easter basket and attended church (every few years), but that was about it. I was also put off by the fact that Easter fell on a different day each year. All of the other holidays stood still, so why did this one have to move around? But I suspect the biggest factor playing into my antipathy toward Easter had to do with the time of year. March and April happen to be my least favorite months; they’re cold, rainy, muddy, and uninspiring. Sure, chocolate bunnies and being saved help sweeten the pot, but early spring in Chicago is still nothing to celebrate.

I can not think about waffles all I want…as long as I’m thinking about pancakes. When it comes to breakfast foods, pancakes are top of the short stack. Waffles are fine; they can even be light and fluffy and delicious. French Toast is okay; it can even be rich and buttery and scrumptious. But pancakes are in a category all their own. When I got a griddle for Christmas, I was genuinely excited. I saw a future for myself that included pancakes each and every weekend for years to come. Nothing could be finer.

I enjoy a good lawn ornament as much as the next guy, but I also think giant inflatable Santas are obnoxious. Unfortunately, my neighbors don’t agree with me. Two of them have seen fit to decorate their yards with plastic abominations. There’s an inflatable snowman, a trio of inflatable Christmas trees, and a tiny inflatable Santa. Thankfully, there’s no inflatable snow globe. That would be too much to take; I would probably be tempted to puncture it. Would I get sued? Maybe. Beaten up? Perhaps. But it would be worth it to see all that snowy confetti finally break free.

Okay, I admit it. At my wife’s urging, I bought our cat a Christmas present. (I even wrapped the thing.) On December 25, he’ll be the proud owner of a cloth-covered, pillow-adorned window perch. Never again will he need to sit on the armrest of our chair, his paw stretched out so that it barely touches the windowsill. No, sir. He’ll have a veritable kitty couch that hangs over the side of the sill and sits on brackets that screw into the wall, supporting up to 25 pounds of feline. This thing even matches the color scheme my wife and I chose for our living room. I’m sure our cat will like it, but I get the feeling he would have enjoyed a dead bird even more.

Everyone has their pet peeves. For me, it’s containers of honey shaped like bears (don’t ask). For my wife, it’s anything even remotely associated with the Chicago Cubs. Wrigley Field? She thinks it a decrepit old building with lots of expensive seats located directly behind posts. The surrounding neighborhood? She sees it as nothing more than a loutish, overcrowded frat house. But she reserves the bulk of her disgust for the team itself. “They’re losers,” she says. “They haven’t won a World Series in 102 years. They’re never going to win.” How would she react if she were saddled with a Chicago Cubs bank card? I’m not sure, but I suspect our cupboards would be perpetually bare and our car’s gas tank perennially empty.

What will happen when a contractor finally seals the cracks in my foundation? Will my basement remain dry for decades, or will other cracks appear in other places? If groundwater can’t seep through the plugged-up holes in the concrete, will it create new holes through which to seep? Waterproofing a basement is tricky but not impossible, and I’m hoping the people I hire are up to the task. Otherwise, putting up new insulation and drywall will be a fool’s errand; a soggy, frustrating fool’s errand.

It’s nice to have someone to talk to but, unfortunately, not everyone does. I sat near a man on the train this evening who spent the entire ride mumbling to himself. At first I thought he was talking to the woman next to him, but I quickly realized that his slurred speech was directed at an imaginary audience. This man did not reek of alcohol, nor was he dressed in battered clothes. As a matter of fact, he looked like a normal commuter decked out in shorts and clean gym shoes. But beneath that clean-cut exterior lied troubles. Here was a man who, in all likelihood, had no one to talk to. It made me appreciate the time I spend with my friends, my wife, and my family…even if all we do is talk about the rain.